What difference would it make? (Wheels)

Hi all,

so last week I completed my first ever organised event. A 25 mile ride, which is part of a 3 part series (25 miler, 35 miler, 50 miler)
It was a fun ride, but I struggled a bit.
I’d done a 30 miler as a bit of a shakedown on my winter ride, make sure all was well, and it felt great. Could’ve turned around and done it all over again. Confidence was high! Mate was also on his winter bike but really struggled.

In fact he struggled so much, he decided to do the event on his summer race bike. Now, on the face of it, this didn’t seem like an issue - until we set off! Trying to keep up was a real struggle. Over the 90minute ride we averaged 45Watts more than the shakedown ride (or at least I did trying to keep up!). I finished broken, knackered and would never have been able to do much more.

This has me thinking of upgrades for the 50 miler.

Now, it is winter, it is wet and I love the comfort my winter setup offers:
Full mudguards
40mm tyres (sooo comfy)
so I’m happy with what I’ve got, but if it’s nicer weather - or at least dryer, I’d like to have something I can swap out to and bridge the gap a bit. Plus, in summer I’d rather the bike become more of a racer, rather than an endurance bike anyway.

As stated above, I’m running 40mm Challenge Strada tyres on Mavic Aksium wheels. I like the setup, it’s comfy and I feel confident on damp/leafy terrain which is what I wanted.

I was thinking of getting Zipp 303 wheels with a 30mm tyre for when it looks nicer.

I do also own a rim brake Cube Litening which has 25mm tyres, and is light as a feather and feels like a rocket to ride. But still leaning toward my Ribble CGR being my one bike to rule them all, just with a few tweaks. The Cube I’m really seeing as my “it’s a lovely day and I want to go mad” bike. It’s more of a bike I’d wanted to own rather than a sensible “needs to do a specific job” purchase.

anyway - how much difference would the wheel/tyre swap make? is there a way to calculate this? can I plug info into a calculator and see the difference between the two setups?

45 Watt more seems like a lot faster than your shakedown ride. I don’t think there are 45 free watts in wheels and tires compared to your current setup with mudguards. Do you have an aero helmet and thight fitting jersey, aero shoe covers and so on? If not, that’s probably where I’d start, especially the helmet.

You can check the rolling resistance of tires on Bicycle Rolling Resistance BRR. The tire you’re using is already plenty fast for a gravel tire.

Taking the mudguards off for the event will deliver a big gain

mudguards = windscoops

Borrowing a pair of Tadej’s ENVE wheels would give you less benefit than taking the mudguards off.

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You cannot make up a large watt differential with equipment. Training is the better solution. But if wheels are you goal to going faster, yes 303’s with a good 30mm tire will be much better than the Aksium’s and 40’s. That said, unless you are set on Zipp you can do equally well or better by choosing a wheel from a reputable Chinese wheel brand like Lightbike, Elite, 9 Velo, Farsports, CRW, etc. You will spend much less.

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Practice riding in a more aero position…best way to get free watts.

Buy faster tires. Check the rolling resistance difference for watts saved.

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I own a Ribble endurance Ti bike that came stock with Mavic Aksium wheels and some not very good (can’t remember the brand) 32mm tyres. Swapped them out fairly quickly for Zipp 303S with 30mm Schwalbe Pro Ones and it felt like a completely different bike. So going from 40mm to 30mm with a decent wheel ultegra as well I would say you will get a big performance boost, at least when on a half decent road surface. I would say the difference between a winter bike with mudguards, cheap wheels and 40mm tyres and a summer race bike with decent wheels and fast tyres could easily be 45 watts if you’re pushing the pace. Especially if it’s a surgey ride where you’re having to accelerate a lot.

Spending all the money on wheels and tires won’t matter much. The tires you used, though wide, don’t have too much rolling resistance relative to a narrower tire. The proposed wheelset is really nice, but you can just spend money for that many watts. You gotta up your fitness level - no shortcuts

I’m not specifically looking for a shortcut, simply to see what efficiency gains can be made to bridge the gap between my winter ride and my mates summer ride

This is someone I ride regularly with, someone I know very well and completely understand their levels in comparison with my own. The shakedown ride we did together was 2 weeks ago, it’s not like he’s suddenly gained 50 watts on his ftp, we’re comparable riders for the most part. He’s stronger in some areas and I’m stronger in others but in general we sit the same over a distance.

I guess the question, really comes down to - given some upgrades, will the ribble be comparable to his rim brake supersix in terms of efficiency or will I need to be putting extra watts in to bridge the gap

If that’s the case, I’d expect to be back on level footing if I use my litening which is very comparable on spec to his supersix - again I’ve ridding with him for months and months him always on the supersix and me on a more summer based bike (no mudguards/slim tyres etc)

He wasn’t using a power meter so perhaps I’ve been unclear, it’s not that he was doing 40 watts more than me and I want some free watts, it was simply I needed to put in 40 watts more than our last ride together to keep up….thats not particularly clear either….

I’m just weighing up my options for the 50 miler, if he’s on his summer ride I’ll need him to ease up. If I use my summer ride we’ll both need to be sensible in order to finish (we’ve ridden 50s together before so understand we need to slow down more at the start - we tend to go out too quick)

So for me my options are
Ride the winter ride as is, get him to ease up.
Ride my summer bike and both set a reasonable pace
Ride my winter bike but make some changes to the setup to help (I say HELP I don’t suggest it’ll suddenly gain me 100w on my ftp, small gains are still gains)

How something feels and how something is are almost always completely different things.

You may or may not feel better, that’s just going to be the factor of you.

It may or may not be faster for the power, that will vary in actuality and also in detectability, depending on the conditions and other factors.

Addendum: try to avoid making judgements the morning after drinking alcohol.

I’ve got a riding buddy who races and has his gear prepared for that, while I’m pretty upright and casual, but fit. We ride the same watts for the ride and usually side by side. On the climbs, we do just about exactly the same wattage, on average. On descents (fast 30-40mph), I have to put out 50w more to be beside him, or otherwise draft him (we ride 250w so I’ll put 300 to his 250). He has very narrow handle bars and a bike one size smaller than mine (shorter head tube). The aero gains matter a lot, but usually just at very high speeds. At normal speeds, you won’t really notice, sometimes nothing or maybe 10-15w difference.

To be a solid 40w average over just to keep up doesn’t sound like it’s just because you’re on a ‘winter bike’ va summer bike, unless winter bike is like a Mtb. But who knows. All I’m saying is I don’t think you can spend that gap away, if it’s really 40w difference. You might get a bit of it down but maybe like 10w as the expectation sounds more realistic. Something else is up with the difference

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see the 10-15W difference is really what I’d be expecting to find, at our level of riding that’s still quite alot.

I think i’ve explained the scenario quite poorly, I think alot comes down to the fact he had a cracking ride, and I had a poor one, I’d timed my breakfast really badly and was hungry before we’d started.

let’s put it this way:

ride 1, both on winter bikes (his an 11kg ally topstone), I averaged 150W for 2 hours, he couldn’t keep up at all, finished the ride and he had to lay on the sofa for the rest of the day broken. I could’ve turned round and done it all over again easily.

ride 2, me on winter, him on summer (his a 6kg Supersix), I averaged 190W for 2 hours, I struggled to keep up, and it was me who need the lay down at the end…and a panini lol. He was tired but nothing like Ride 1

If the bike accounted for maybe 10-15W of that and him having a cracking ride accounts for the rest I’d totally understand that and it answers my question completely that it’s not worth spending the money out and on the day, we’ll have to assess how we both feel and work together to find the best average to run at, and I’ll look forward to gaining that 15W come summer when I can either ride my Cube or simply take off the mudguards and winter tyres.

I’m still new to winter cycling, this is my first winter in. So i’m still green in what actually does and doesn’t effect my riding.

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Couple questions,
How many feet of climbing did you have over the 25 miles? More climbing is going to accentuate the differences between your winter bike and his Supersix.

Do you have any bags on your bike would increase your aero drag?

I wouldn’t compromise further than tyres and mudguards personally. After that, you may as well just use the good bike.

My experience is a true winter set up won’t compete with a summer one. At least in Ireland, a winter set up seems something of a thing of the past, and is now just an older good bike!

Taken my winter touring bike on some fast group laps and over 1 hour, I’ve had to do 25% more watts (40-50) than everyone else on their best bikes. I’ve also recently used this bike with the summer race wheels and you can feel the difference the tyres make, according to BRR it’s about ~20watts. Easy to see how the other 20-30w are lost in aero; mudguards, front rack and higher position.

When these winter tyres wear out (Pirelli Cinturato Velo 35c), I’ll have some GP 5000 All Season 35c lined up.

This is all to say, look at tyres when they start to wear but I personally woudn’t buy tyres for one 50 miler. Take the guards off if the forecast is nice, hassle but otherwise free.

p.s. not against nice wheels on a winter road bike with disc brakes but maybe don’t go all money gun in your first year and don’t expect them to be life changing but you do you… :grin:

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Well, 2nd event down - this one was 35 miles. So I was somewhat daunted being as I made such a mess of the 25.

I did a solo 35 last week just to get my confidence up as a “it takes as long as it takes” at least then I’d know what pace I can or can’t manage.

What a difference some crumpets make though!! I completely changed my nutrition plan for this event, especially as I was hungry from the start of the 25. I got the timing alot better, ate slightly differently (aforementioned crumpets rather than my previous bircher) which seemed to work for me alot better. I also took on more carbs during the ride, I used my inhaler at the start regardless of needing it.

We held the wheel of a group for a good 10 miles, so we made much more efficient use of our power output this time around too.

Interestingly, comparing the 25 to the 35, we were 1mph faster, we used more power, yet finished feeling fresher. So it seems my concerns were really just a case of poor fuelling.

Lesson learned!!

Looking forward to the 50 now, still a distance that I find tough but I’m happier going into it.

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are you riding on the road? these tires say they are specifically for gravel.

what if you got a 38/40mm more road oriented tire? or like continental makes a GP5000 35mm. would that be comfy enough for your day to day riding?

and yeah if your mudguards are a pita to take on and off, you can get detachable ones.

that might be enough to quench your itch.

I have these. takes seconds to take them on and off and they stay put. they are awesome. (maybe 15 min initial setup but then on and off in a jiffy).

Excellent, crumpets are a lot cheaper than wheels, make sure you eat even more for the 50!